The Sky Above The Clouds

Thoughts while walking a footpath to work alone

I wonder what the sky looks like above the clouds on a stormy day. It’s still day. The sun doesn’t disappear. Clouds cover the brightness of it and below, we see the dark shadowed underbelly of mother nature. Above the clouds, there must still be sunsets when it reaches that time of day. Although, I wonder where the sun sinks to if not behind the mountains and curve of the living planet that is below the clouds. Would the sun continue to glow forever, if the clouds never crossed it? And if the water never reflected its shifting colours back into the sky, would the sky have a colour at all? Which leads back to the question, if the clouds laid a blanket over the sea at dusk, would the sky reflect a sunset above them, or would the only colour be seeped through the holes as all the natural colours of the planet are arched across the land, with an undetermined destination, leaving nothing but the desires to be chased?

What does the sky look like above the clouds on a stormy day? I ask myself on days like this when I walk this winding footpath alone and the sun is the only thing that can be seen in the sky if one has the courage to look at it. A simple wash of blue is plastered above us. I sometimes toy with the idea that it’s the roof to the space dome we’ve grown life into. People often say the sky is the limit even when there are footprints on the moon. The moon can be seen up there as well actually. The first time I saw it in the daytime when I was a child, I turned to my mother and said ‘what’s the moon doing up there?’ As if the moon had any other place than exactly where it was. The moon’s position can look so dull and odd against a blue sky. No one ever talks about the moon in the morning. Yet there it is, still convincing the waves that they can reach it if gravity pulled them far enough, the puppeteer with strings attached to the water. I asked my mother what makes waves once, and she said the footprints of boats carving their way through the liquid concrete sent waves that didn’t stop until they touched the shore. Or at least that’s how I imagined it. I’m sure that that’s not what she meant but I’ve pictured waves being sent on their endless journeys like that ever since. Now I see the flaw in that picture. Did the water wave back at us before boats were made? Of course it did. This means I’m back to where I started, wondering how waves have the confidence to lift their chins above the rest of its body. But I think I know that answer too. It's gravity. And the silent puppeteer that pulls the water’s strings.

I walk this path alone often. It used to scare me. It’s a path both perfectly tucked away and one that weaves out onto the road of cars that are so close to home they forget that bad things can still happen. ‘Anything, as long as I can get home.’ The peaceful part of the path that winds if you look into the distance, but is straight if you look under your feet, used to scare me. Scare me in a way that excited me. It lies out the back of the houses on both sides of it. Territory outlines have their back turned to it, making it seem like a ditch. I wonder if it would flood here on a stormy day. I can imagine myself wafting through puddles that only just reach the canvas of my shoe but manage to wet my socks anyway. Flicking up water droplets behind me that create muddy patterns on the back of my shirt. Like a muddy leopard print, but you’d never notice if a leopard has been through the mud or if it’s a part of their coat.

Something that astonishes me about animals is their limited knowledge of life. I wonder if they ever question the lives they find themselves thrown into. Does a seagull ever look at a shark and want to learn to swim? I often look at a bird and wish I could fly. I envision myself falling off a cliff, backwards, letting my body be subject to the freeness of the fall, wind unable to catch me and I rush downwards, cutting through and disturbing its flow. I imagine myself resurfacing from the pits and I glide back to where I started, a pair of wings on my back, my face turned upwards to the sun. I catch up with the wind, I follow its flow, I make my own. My body twists and turns in ways that wouldn’t work when walking on a footpath alone. On days like this, I like to picture what life could be like if nature had a different story for me. I wonder if I even have a story. Not every creature is remembered. I wonder if I’ll be just another creature that exists because life has reached this part of its evolution. I wonder what the future evolutions will look like. Maybe it would be possible to fly if we had evolved from birds. It might still be possible. A future evolution may sprout wings as we try to fulfill our dream of reaching for the sky. Footprints on the moon is something that would confuse other life forms if they ever found our section of the universe. And I’m sure there are other life forms. This all couldn’t have happened only once.

The universe continues to grow and expand infinitely. The path I’m walking extends its way further into the distance. Along the path, it branches off. The root system to travel and transport doesn’t stop when it reaches a dead end, you just chose the wrong decision.

On days like this where I travel alone, I remember this is the root system to the destination I find myself at. Wherever I stop walking, the root got me there, and without the roots, life cannot bloom and the leaves would never crash together to make the sound that reminds me that the wind keeps blowing and the world keeps turning no matter what way the tree falls.

I used to watch the world turn. That is because I thought it was the world turning that I saw. Now it could be the wind that doesn’t belong to limits, reaches the heights of the clouds and pushes them out of the way of the sun’s glow. I always picture the clouds, sun and moon as things with minds, when perhaps they are the most dead things that exist.

On days like these, walking the path alone, I feel like I am alive. Not because I am the only living thing here, but because I’m not. Walking this path alone, I let my mind wander because I can. And I can because I’m alive.

I walk this path alone knowing I’m not alone, but rather I’m on my own. The path which branches off and I’ll choose the direction I follow. Everyone else will have their back turned, as I travel my way through the root system. And even as I do, the world will keep turning, and the sky will have hidden mysteries that I won’t be able to fly up and see.

As nature knows no limits, we do. We are limited to a blue domed sky. Or maybe not. There are further mysteries we will never know as our limits reach the moon. After all, there is only one man who saw the dark side of the moon.